World - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in World was 75.06 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 75.07 in 2019 and a minimum value of 54.61 in 1960.

Definition: Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.

Source: (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also:

Year Value
1960 54.61
1961 55.10
1962 55.53
1963 56.08
1964 56.77
1965 57.45
1966 58.21
1967 58.93
1968 59.57
1969 60.16
1970 60.75
1971 61.27
1972 61.73
1973 62.16
1974 62.64
1975 63.09
1976 63.52
1977 63.98
1978 64.37
1979 64.78
1980 65.09
1981 65.46
1982 65.80
1983 66.05
1984 66.32
1985 66.56
1986 66.84
1987 67.09
1988 67.30
1989 67.53
1990 67.75
1991 67.96
1992 68.13
1993 68.28
1994 68.53
1995 68.71
1996 68.98
1997 69.23
1998 69.45
1999 69.63
2000 69.87
2001 70.11
2002 70.34
2003 70.57
2004 70.90
2005 71.16
2006 71.51
2007 71.84
2008 72.16
2009 72.52
2010 72.84
2011 73.19
2012 73.48
2013 73.79
2014 74.07
2015 74.27
2016 74.51
2017 74.70
2018 74.88
2019 75.07
2020 75.06

Development Relevance: Mortality rates for different age groups (infants, children, and adults) and overall mortality indicators (life expectancy at birth or survival to a given age) are important indicators of health status in a country. Because data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. And they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries.

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Life expectancy at birth used here is the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if mortality patterns at the time of its birth remain constant in the future. It reflects the overall mortality level of a population, and summarizes the mortality pattern that prevails across all age groups in a given year. It is calculated in a period life table which provides a snapshot of a population's mortality pattern at a given time. It therefore does not reflect the mortality pattern that a person actually experiences during his/her life, which can be calculated in a cohort life table. High mortality in young age groups significantly lowers the life expectancy at birth. But if a person survives his/her childhood of high mortality, he/she may live much longer. For example, in a population with a life expectancy at birth of 50, there may be few people dying at age 50. The life expectancy at birth may be low due to the high childhood mortality so that once a person survives his/her childhood, he/she may live much longer than 50 years.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Health Indicators

Sub-Topic: Mortality